Tag Archives: restaurant

Tequila is my friend

Mexico and tequila and are two things that just naturally go together, sorta like West Virginia and incest. My friend Jeremy remarked that my little group consumed more tequila in our five days in Cancun than he'd managed since moving here eight years ago. I don't think he was kidding. There's a lot to love about Cancun, and the local tequila surely makes the list. When the hotel waiter on the beach asks you if you want the "good stuff," however, say no, emphatically, unless $25 shots are in your budget. These connoisseur tequilas aren't in my budget, though this failed to occur to me until after we'd downed ... [Read More]

Singapore Style

Singapore’s had a rather turbulent history, dating back a thousand years from its beginnings as an important trading port in Southeast Asia, to its destruction by the Portuguese in 1613, to a very prosperous century under British rule. During World War II Singapore was occupied by brutal Japanese troops, who inflicted untold atrocities upon her people, before being returned to the Brits after the Japanese defeat. Singapore, as part of a federation with Malaysia, gained independence from the British Empire in 1963, but two years later ditched the Malaysians and formed their own independent country. Singapore is hysterically disdainful of their brothers to the north, viewing Malaysia as backwards, ... [Read More]

Hong Kong: The Haze, the Haggling and the Hutong

    Hong Kong’s air generally has more in common with something you’d expect to be used on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay than anything you’d actually want in your lungs. Seriously – visibility in Hong Kong most of the year is about 5 miles. So I was more than a little startled, and thrilled (once I’d assured myself the pilot hadn’t touched down in the wrong place), when we arrived to crystal clear air, with nary a hint of haze or pollution. In nearly three decades of visiting this great city I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so clear. This is a fact about which I apparently found ... [Read More]

Understanding Seoul

  I hate chopsticks. Mostly because they hate me, too. And those in Korea hate me more than most. In Korea they traditionally eat with thin, slick, metal chopsticks, no-doubt designed purely to torment Western guests. Soo and I were famished when, after 24 hours of travel, we arrived in Seoul late Sunday. So, after dropping our bags at our hotel we headed straight out for a bite. By sheer luck we stumbled into Gomsotzid, a traditional Korean barbeque joint, and one of the best meals we’ve ever had. The food was extraordinary, and the staff gracious and helpful. At least when they weren’t laughing at my often feeble ... [Read More]

The old world charm of modern Edinburgh

  “Have ya been dahn in England?” “Why, yes.” “Pffffffttttt! They got nofhing on us! Yust that bloody Buckingham Palace ‘n watnot. Not like ‘ere.” And with that our charming cab driver welcomed us to Edinburgh, Scotland. And he really was charming, like so much of the city of which he’s so proud. He went on to explain, often in English so heavily accented that Soo and I could only nod and feign understanding (there was no interrupting him), that we were daft buggars for having wasted so much time in Bloody England when we could have been in Scotland. At one point he pulled over, cursed about Bloody England again, ... [Read More]

The Pirates of the Caribbean

  The Bahamas first became known to Europeans in 1492 when Christopher Columbus hopped off his boat on Guananhani Island  in what history has come to record as the “discovery" of America.  The Spanish monarchy, and thus Spainsh explorers, were driven by a passion for gold and god. The newly discovered islands had no gold, so the Spanish had little interest in the Bahamas beyond inflicting their god on the native people, called the Lucayans, forcing most of their new Christians into slave labor, then more or less wiping the rest out. It took fewer than 20 years to decimate the population, with as many as ... [Read More]

Suddenly the sea

As is the norm when arriving in a new Indian city, Soo and I exited the massively crowded and disorganized airport in Chennai and looked for the driver sent by our hotel to collect us. Contrary to the norm, he wasn't there. We searched the entire area around the domestic terminal, then walked down to the exit for the international terminal and searched again. Still, no luck. We called the hotel and asked the whereabouts of our driver. They put us on hold, then connected us with said driver, who promised to arrive "in 2 minutes." Twenty minutes later he showed up, in The Smallest Car Ever Built, and proceeded ... [Read More]